On the launch day of Pokémon X & Pokémon Y, I would like to remind people that Game Freak does in fact, make games aside from Pokémon.
Unbelievable as it may sound for you younger folks whose only exposure to Game Freak's wide palette of titles involves capturing animals in tiny balls, Game Freak has made quite a few original games before and during the development of Pokémon Red and Blue. Starting off with Mendel Palace on the NES in 1989, these titles were made on various consoles, ranging from the Famicom to the Turbografx 16, often being overly ambitious but failing to realize the concept behind the game. That is until 1994, when Game Freak released Pulseman for the SEGA Genesis, an excellent and energetic platformer built around the unique hook of the Volteccer that, sadly, only saw a limited release in the West via the Sega Channel until hitting the Wii Virtual Console in 2009. When Pokémon became the worldwide phenomenon that we know it to be today, Game Freak's fresh new titles have been few and far between. Which brings us today's title.

First shown at E3 2005 under the name of Screw Breaker, Drill Dozer was released in Japan on September 25th, 2005 and in North America on February 6th, 2006. When it was initially launched, the game included a mini-comic detailing events that happened prior to Drill Dozer's main storyline, but the story isn't why you're going to be playing this game in the first place. One odd thing to note is the shape of the cartridge; it's unusual enough to see a cartridge that wasn't the standard grey or the translucent plastic you'd see cover the Pokémon games, let alone with such a deformed looking cartridge. Why's it shaped like that? Well, let's take a look inside, shall we? Now, let's compare it to this copy of Pokémon Ruby and Sapphire that I just happened to have lying around. As you can see, Drill Dozer's cartridge is and includes a rumble feature; As such Drill Dozer had a larger cartridge size than you'd usually see for the Game Boy Advance. In fact, the only other Game Boy Advance game to use this was WarioWare: Twisted, making it one of the most unique game cartridges in the Game Boy Advance's library. But is there more to this title than a strange plastic shell? Let's drill below the mantle and explore Drill Dozer!

You play as Jill, member of the Red Dozers, a group of thieves who set out to recover their stolen Red Diamond from a rival gang known as the Skullkers. To do that, she dons a mech known as the drill dozer to jump, dodge and drill through the game's non-linear levels within its six stages. You start off each level with only one gear which won't get you very far but by solving simple puzzles and breaking whatever obstacles lie in your path with your trusty drill, you can find two more gears that allow the drill dozer to reach a second or third gear respectively and explore even more areas in a stage, culminating in a boss fight that you beat by finding their weak spot and shifting it up to the max to inflict maximum damage. And of course, they wouldn't be a group of thieves without loot, so you'll "find" multiple treasure chests to raid, and collect bits dropped by destroyed objects and enemies which you can find and use to purchase upgrades, like health and a harder drill bit, as well as more levels after beating the boss and getting picked up by your crew's trailer. One thing that must be said is that Drill Dozer boasts an excellent control scheme, for the most part, with each shoulder button controlling the drill dozer's drill, the drill's gear and each direction the drill spins. It crams a lot of things to do with as few buttons as it has but it all felt very smooth. The rumble pack works great too, gimmicky as it may seem, for making you feel like you're drilling into hard objects, and it's very satisfying to feel that vibration in your hand once you've gotten through a strong and long line of tough blocks. Satisfying applies itself well to the elements of Drill Dozer's design; it's obvious that a lot of thought went behind every object and platform's placement that just clicks together as a whole, though, that's not its greatest achievement. There's a lot depth mined out of Drill Dozer's major hook from timing to type of gear that leads to some particularly brilliant moments, but again, that's not the best part. The true brilliance of Drill Dozer comes not from the level design itself, but how fully realized each level is and the brilliance of how well it utilizes the defining mechanic of which each level is built around. Game Freak really understood what they could do with the drill dozer, always managing to find a new way to keep you exploring the mechanic yourself and how best to manipulate it to beat the level as fast as you can, or introduces a new block or object that keeps Drill Dozer fresh from beginning to end. Even something as simple as the various lackeys scattered throughout the level require careful timing and attention in order to defeat them. It's simply amazing how much variety they got out of this one mechanic, yet show how much fertile soil there still is to break ,no pun intended, with this solid mechanic, best exemplified in the boss battles.

With the exception of the very final two, each of them plays out like a fast-paced, on your toes puzzle in of itself; Each encounter finds a unique way to make you use the Drill Dozer as a tool rather than a weapon, while keeping the basic goal of defeating them in sight. It's moments like these which make Drill Dozer a near flawless and refreshing experience. Most of the problems that it has are common with platformers, like the ill-conceived water levels, but there are a few of its own. For example, why just have a bad water level when you can take the sky and have terrible air levels? Technically an air level, but the point still stands. It's true that levels like these are often included to add variety to them, but they did that fine by building on top of the foundation that the previous level had without sacrificing quality, and, if you prefer an actual level as an example, the one where you start off operating the Drill Dozer without a pilot. Which somehow jumps lower than when it had the 50 pound girl in it. Video game logic at its finest folks. While we're on the subject of logic, For the life of me, I will get used to B for opening doors when the up button can do the same thing. I know I said the control scheme is really well done, and it is, picking up pictures with the B button works fine, but why not let us press up to go through doors like in, oh, just about every platformer with doors, why B? It's not like the B button doesn't do enough as it does already. Also, here's a minor nitpick: Why ask us if we want to save after every level? "Do I want to save? Well, my battery is low but how much fun it would be if the power turned off only for me to have to start over from the beginning instead where I left off? Oh wait, that's stupid."

Drill Dozer is also pretty easy and surprising light on content. Not counting the bonus stages, which you have to pay for, or the training course, there's only 11 for the main campaign. And while they are solid, not a bad one in all of them outside the aforementioned air and water ones, and the bonus levels are easily worth the time gather the to unlock them, it doesn't change the fact that, due to the surprising lack of replayability from Game Freak, the time that you'll spend with Drill Dozer will be short-lived. Why is that? Why does the overall package feel like such a brief, albeit, rewarding experience? Well, it might just be a theory, but it could be because every level has some unwanted padding in between the fun parts. There are sections where the game just stops and throws waves of enemies at you for a short period of time. And no, you don't have to attack them to progress, they literally walk on screen, attack and then run off after some time. Why yes, that does make these parts a complete waste of time.

Drill Dozer is at its best when it has you solving puzzles and testing your reflexes. When parts like this pop up, he flow tends to suffer and slow things to a standstill. They have no purpose aside from artificially inflating this short game's length damaging the pacing of each level. Speaking of pacing, let's talk about these cutscenes. Oh me oh my oh me oh these cutscenes. My oh my are they bad, and not just the dialogue, the constant tutorials are a pain too. A good tutorial, often with the option to skip them if you're a veteran or, shock, want to learn how to play the game on your own. Drill Dozer constantly disrupts the gameplay at every opportunity to tell you how to defeat this boss or how to get past this door; basically, something you could have figured out if you just used your brain. What's that? Hold down R to keep drilling? Thank you, I never would have been able to figure that out own my own. Be sure to tell me how to use a Pokéball for the millionth bloody time. While these are awful, poorly implemented tutorials that treat the player like a moron, they're not the end of the problems these cutscenes create. They're constantly interrupting the flow of gameplay for exposition and explaining what's going on instead of showing you what's going on. You thought DuckTales Remastered was littered with too many cutscenes? Well, it is... but Drill Dozer is a far bigger offender than Remastered. At least there, you can skip the cutscenes at any time and keep on going with only a minor interruption. At least there's something redeemable in hearing the original cast of the show come back for what are, essentially, new DuckTales episodes. Drill Dozer has nothing to benefit your experience from any of these. They're shorter, but not being able to skip them on your first time through takes even more away from the overall experience when you just want the characters to shut their giant gobs and let you continue on with the levels. And they happen so often and the writing is just so terrible, even for Game Freak's standards... Even when they don't have anything important to say, the game still feels like wasting your time reminding you of what just happened seconds ago. It is this astoundingly awful pacing and bad writing that will crawl under your skin the more you play it. But again... these levels are pure brilliance. For as good an attempt the narrative does to make you put the game down, and rest assured, whoever the writer was made a very, very good attempt, the level design keeps you picking it up and going to see what new way the drill can be used. If you can look past the faults of the narrative, then you'll find some of the most well-made and engaging levels on any handheld platformer. When things start shifting up, Drill Dozer delivers and then some.

Finally, the presentation, where this isn't much to nitpick as far as looks go because, well just look at it. The art style is adorable and these big, colourful sprites are filled with charm in every frame with neat little touches added to each one; just look at the way Jill's backpack moves as she carries it on her drill dozer, the way her hair curls up when she jumps or the gears moving as you shift one up. It's subtle attention to detail like that which makes Drill Dozer such a marvel for your eyes. It looks magnificent, easily a contender for the best sprite work on the Game Boy Advance... sigh... if only it sounded as good. If you're expecting the catchy beats Game Freak pumped out in Pulseman or Pokémon, prepare to be disappointed, big time! Yes, getting that third gear gives you a grand feeling of accomplishment when you hear that triumphant tune for the first time, but it quickly loses its lustre. The rest of the score is pretty bad, even for a Game Boy Advance game. Sure, Ruby and Sapphire focused way too much on trumpets, but this is just sad. Even knowing how terrible the sound chip was for the Game Boy Advance is, it's a surprisingly bland and unmemorable soundtrack from a team who not three years, provided some infectiously catchy tunes with said scrappy sound chip. It doesn't even sound like Game Freak composed this, it sounds like a fan of Game Freak making a hacked attempt at a score to a Game Freak game. A bad. The sound design is partially salvaged by some especially satisfying sounds, but recycled sound effects from Pokémon Ruby & Sapphire sound come off as more than a touch lazy. Frankly, i'm surprised that there wasn't a trumpet enemy, that's how much they reuse them from Ruby and Sapphire, but I digress. Drill Dozer's definitely a gem in most fields, but its music is the one think you won't be keeping on very long.

Replaying Drill Dozer made me realize why Game Freak was my favorite studio at one point: There's an abundance of creativity to the concept that is surpassed with excellent controls and the execution in the smart level design. It's heartbreaking to see this game not be more successful because it proudly stands among the best the Game Boy Advance has to offer.

For as creative as Drill Dozer was, and as well received as was, even setting up events that would lead into a sequel, said creativity and reception didn't translate to sales, and Drill Dozer flopped hard, selling roughly 50,000 copies. For a company that houses the second best selling series of all time, that's pretty pathetic. Copies are a bit scarce and will usually go for upwards of 15 dollars on your local website, but Drill Dozer is definitely worth that price and more, it really is a gem, one that was released just too late into the Game Boy Advance's life cycle.
So here's hoping that we finally get that Drill Dozer sequel, and not a horse solitaire game that no one asked for! Until next time, game on my friends.

Fan service: The placement of a certain material or character in media to please a fanbase. Originated from anime and Manga. May be meant to be titillating (sexually arousing; See Bayonetta)

I've always looked at the above definition of so-called fan service and lowered my head down in disgust. The mere idea that something is done for the fans aside from releasing the actual product up to a standard expected by that fanbase is ludicrous. Before I go on, I want to make sure people understand that I have no issues with putting in an Easter egg or something nostalgic for a new release.

For example, this is fine, the Tanooki Suit in Super Mario 3D Land was a retro-trip that does serve a purpose in the game as a power-up than makes the game more enjoyable to play and even has multiple variations. What I hold an issue with however, is with characters or iconic symbols of an established franchise being put in place not because they're trying to better the player's experience, but to merely please fans without any regard for quality of the product and ultimately pleasing no one.

Take for example everyone's favourite Final Fantasy to rip on:

No, not that one! This one!

Final Fantasy X-2. Critically, the game scored quite fairly, with most reviews in the 8-9 range, though the most common criticism was the lack of significant improvements over what many consider to be one of the best entries in the series and the change in the soundtrack from series composer Nobuo Uematsu to Noriko Matsueda and Takahito Eguchi's. Fan reaction however?

Yeah, not looking too good Square Enix.

Though essentially the same game mechanically from 2001 that so many loved, Final Fantasy X-2 was and still is, detested by fans as one of the worst entries in the series to date. In this game you play as three females (and no one else), Rikku, Yuna and Paine, the former two being in the previous game while hunting down Spheres and see another love story unfold with two previously unknown characters that were just Titus and Yuna's story love story through a different looking glass... and a lot less reason to care about any of them. Final Fantasy X-2 feels like a game without a soul. It didn't feel like it was made because they wanted to tell a good story and make a good game, it was made because Square Enix saw Final Fantasy X sold over 6 million copies and wanted to sell more and then proceeded to cover it up with a bunch of fan service, namely girls in kinky outfits. Yeah, as if Rikku being an ideal sex fantasy to some people isn't enough of a creepy thought, now she can look like this:

And for only $12.99, you too can unlock the Under-age School Girl Dress Sphere, complete with five under-skirt shots! Then again, she is wearing clothes than she normally does...

There's actually quite a few games in Final Fantasy that are deliberate fan service (All The Bravest... ugh) but we need to move on. Besides, it's not just limited to games either. It's easy to find some in anime and several manga adaptations nowadays, but it also happens in films too:

I think it goes without saying that after Star Ware: Episode I - The Phantom Menace, many Star Wars enthusiasts were less than pleased about the prequel trilogy. So what did George Lucas and Lucasfilms do to make up for that cinematic disappointment? Make a better film?

Nope. Bring in some guy that looks like everybody's favourite Boba Fett!

Want more? Here, the Stormtroopers are in it too because they were in the first three films!

Those aren&#Array;t the characters you are looking for

Not good enough? Look, Yoda's kicking ass like a boss because he's supposed to be a Jedi Master like they said in the first trilogy!

It felt like George Lucas was saying to the film crew "I want them to love me again, look at how great I am. Look at it, love me!"

Right? I mean the film is constantly making references to the original trilogy, so people will love it, right? No.

Star Wars: Episode II - Attack of the Clones was the equivalent of a pandering, attention-seeking, whiny little brat trying to get their mother's attention by constantly yanking on her skirt until he tugged so hard he pulled it down and left her undergarments showing off in your local Wal-Mart. It's embarrassing on both parts and sends you the message about what kind of parent they are to their uncontrollable child. Episode I may be a lackluster film 5/10 eye-candy mess at best, but Episode II is by and large the worst Star Wars film. Instead of improving on what had outraged fans so much in The Phantom Menace (namely the film being mediocre compared to previous theatrical ventures in a galaxy far, far away) Attack of the Clones tried to cater to fans and no one else, leaving everyone with a film that has little to behold except a terribly written story, the same eye candy visuals from its previous film, and an awfully executed romance that continued the discrediting of George Lucas as a film director. And as someone who is not overly fond of Star Wars to begin with (but has nothing against it), I can say that it was not just distracting to see all this fan service, but irritated down to my core that the film itself was nothing more than a boring theatrical disaster.

So you're probably wondering: Caz, you smart, handsome devil you, what got you to so riled up to talk about this? It's for the fans, they probably enjoy dressing up Yuna as a samurai or seeing Boba Fett as a kid, and you're a fanboy, so why should you hold it against them?

Well, i'm not holding it against them as I am holding it against the creators for putting it in the first place

As for what set me off... It was this:

This is what got me to finally discuss my disgust for the idea of fan service and its true lack thereof. The redesign of Eirika from Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones for the soon-to-be-released Fire Emblem: Awakening. For those unaware (as i'm sure many of you are, what with not playing Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones), in Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones, Eirika is portrayed as a strong, kind-hearted young woman who ventures out to save her twin brother during a war after her homeland is taken over and is crawling with enemy soldiers and heartless bandits who would gladly see her and her brother die, and is every bit the equal to the young man she's trying to save, her twin brother Ephraim. She's a well-written and well designed character throughout the entire game that you believe can be a soft-hearted young lady in one moment that could snap into a strong, fearless warrior on the battlefield in another.

This is the Eirika I know and love. Sure, she has a skirt that's way shorter than it should be and those leggings... boots... things, whatever, the character is seen to be someone strong and doesn't need some male support of her own. Eirika is not some girl who looks like she's getting ready to become some man's swooned lady overjoyed for her marriage day. This redesign is degrading to her character and another example of the many objectifications of female leads in gaming that there is no shortage of today.

Blasphemy you say? You think it's just me thinking this? Well tell that to the artist of this:

Just here to remind you again: They're brother and sister.

And if that's not enough, her class in the game is "Bride". If the idea surrounding fan service is to serve the fans with placing familiar material to make fans gleeful with joy, then why go to the trouble of completely removing what we liked about them in the first place? That's not fan service, that's a disservice to everyone. Now let's think about the other side: What about people who play this game first and move on to Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones? It gives the new audience a false impression of the character they found in Fire Emblem: Awakening and betrays fans of the original conception with something that fails to satisfy anyone.

If this is what happened to Eirika, I can only imagine what the heck they did to Ephraim...

Of course he looks eve more like a heroic knight than he did before. I guess I shouldn't expect much fairness for the female characters when the designer is the same guy behind Sylvia from No More Heroes and Liberation Maiden.

I'm not kidding, Travis Touchdown and Chrom have the same character designer. Life is confusing sometimes.

Now I could go on and on listing every single piece of fan service, arousing, exciting or whatever the original intent was, and it wouldn't make a difference. Remember the boob window for Power Girl?

Yes, clearly that was there for ar-tits-tits-I mean, artistic merit and for the joy of writing for this deep, interesting character. The point is that as a fan of many series, gaming or otherwise, I always want the best for it. I want to see it improve with every film, game or whatever media it may be. I expect better from a series and its creators, especially one that I enjoy as much and hold in such high regard as Fire Emblem. Sure, it might seem nice that they're including fan favourites in this instalment, but what does it matter five or tens years from now when we look back at it and the other instalments that come out over the years? In the past, we've seen that fan service does nothing but degrade the original creators' design just to serve a small part of a fanbase and either alienate or anger the rest of the people who experience their choice media/s.

Hoo, ok, i've got that all out of my system, I feel much better. Anyway, it's too little too late now, and Fire Emblem: Awakening is only days away from release. You'll be hearing from me whether I was wrong or not on the matter (and I really hope I am) but what about years after when we look back at this entry and its inclusions within the game? I want to remember Fire Emblem: Awakening years from now for what it brought to the series and the good time I have playing it on my ninth and tenth time on Hard Mode in a row. I don't want to be reminded of characters from games i'd much rather play. I'm sick of this idea that including something from the past makes it better just by pure nostalgia. It doesn't, not for me at least. If the term fan service is meant to describe something in to please fans, then I can't think of anything better than the creators gave it their all and brought us a truly wonderful experience that we'll remember for the rest of our lives. That is the greatest fan service that a creative team can ever give its fans.